The New York Enterprise Windows User Group (NYeWin)

Presents

Embracing the Virtualization Era

by

Tony Iams

 

Thursday, July 7, 2005

With the availability of mass-market virtual machine options such as Microsoft Virtual Server and hardware-based virtualization functions in industry-standard processors from Intel and AMD, virtualization is becoming standardized, potentially resulting in a fundamental transformation of IT operations. By decoupling workloads and data from the functional details of the physical platforms on which they are hosted, virtualization allows workloads to be matched with physical resources far more flexibly, enabling administrators to develop business-driven policies for delivering resources that are appropriate given specific time, cost, and service level requirements. This allows IT operations to be performed with far better economies of scale, allowing infrastructures to be managed efficiently even as they undergo high rates of growth, while maximizing the utilization of existing resources. This session will review the tradeoffs between virtualization tools such as virtual machines, partitions, resource management software, blade servers, provisioning software, and grid computing. The discussion will explore the key factors that need to be considered during the selection process for virtualization technology, and it will review the pain points and challenges experienced by users who have already deployed virtualization.

Here are some of the questions that this presentation will address:
* What are the key virtualization technologies available today?
* How are users justifying the adoption of virtualization?
* What areas have users identified where virtualization techniques are perceived to help solve IT issues?
* What specific “pain points” are driving users to adopt virtualization technologies?
* Which virtualization techniques are users adopting first and which will they delay?
* Are proper cost accounting tools available to deal with virtualization?
* What costs are estimated for deployment virtualization technology?
* What technology changes are still needed for virtualization to succeed?

Speaker Background:

Tony Iams is Vice President and Lead Analyst at the analyst firm IDEAS International (formerly D. H. Brown Associates), where he manages the System Software (SS) research program. With his team of analysts, he focuses on evaluating and contrasting the features and functions of the leading operating system and virtualization technologies in use today. By applying a detailed analysis methodology, the team identifies strengths and weaknesses of current products and guides IT decision makers on the most effective system software technology choices. In addition to building an in-depth understanding of the functional tradeoffs between Linux, UNIX, and Windows operating systems, the group's research focuses on the issues related to decoupling workloads from details about the underlying operating system (OS) and hardware (HW) platforms, so that resources can be matched with workloads more flexibly. The key virtualization technologies covered include logical partitions, resource management software, virtual machines, blade servers, provisioning software, and Grid computing. Before joining the firm in 1992, Tony worked as a software engineer at Computer Graphics Laboratories, Inc., where he developed applications for UNIX and Windows platforms. During that time, he also served as adjunct instructor for introductory programming in the Computer Science Department at New York Institute of Technology. Tony graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics/Computer Science and a double major in German.


Refreshments will be served courtesy of our sponsor, Exagrid

Thanks to Culminis, we have some goodies to give away.

All meetings are held at 6 PM at Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas (between 51st/52nd) in New York. Please bring photo ID for building access